


Round River Circle

by moonfishes



Category: SNH48, 偶像练习生 | Idol Producer (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Angst, Canon Compliant, F/F, Gender Issues, Identity Issues, The SNH48 Lesbian Experience, Unrequited Love, set from qcyn2 filming to late last year, slightly non linear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 04:14:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30032892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonfishes/pseuds/moonfishes
Summary: It had grown out of the itch in her heart, the same primordial one that made her like girls instead of boys. Except it wasn’t primordial in the way she had always known; who would have thought a girl like her could like a girl like Su Shanshan?
Relationships: Fei Qinyuan/Su Shanshan
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14
Collections: Girl Group Jukebox (Round 3)





	Round River Circle

**Author's Note:**

> Written for GG Jukebox Round 3, inspired by Charli XCX's Super Love.
> 
> This started off as a lighthearted thing about the whole 'Fei Qinyuan only likes Ts' fandom joke; I kept thinking to myself, okay, then what if she started crushing on Su Shanshan, who is the antithesis of her typical ideal type? And then I ended up here, lol. It's not a very happy fic—when I say unrequited love I mean it! There is a lot of talk about roles within SNH pairings or (chinese) lesbian relationships in general, hence the ‘gender issues’ tag: ideas about gender/sexuality (that I do not agree with, but definitely exist) coexist within the fic. There is also a lot about FQY and 433’s roles within SNH, as well as the complicated relationship between SNH idols and their fans, but please don’t take any of it as fact. 
> 
> I have included Chinese words/terms that I have not chosen to translate, and also a lot of SNH fandom terms, please go to the end notes for explanations! However, one that I think is important to note before reading is the idea of ‘circles’ or ‘roundness’ in this fic, where the wordplay comes from the last character of FQY’s name: 源 (yuan), a homonym for 圆 (yuan), meaning round. Another thing is the 'river', which is used to describe SNH & the girls because the 'Seine' river is romanized in Mandarin as SaiNaHe 塞纳河 (SNH).

**Fall**

It had grown out of the itch in her heart, the same primordial one that made her like girls instead of boys. Except it wasn’t primordial in the way she had always known; who would have thought a girl like her could like a girl like Su Shanshan? Not her, not ever—not until Su Shanshan had crawled into her bed in their Changlong dorm and whispered, “Yuanyuan?” in that high monotone voice of hers, turning the question into a statement that gnawed at the itch. It was midnight. Su Shanshan’s eyes were wide, made bigger by the curtained moonlight. Yuanyuan, Yuanyuan. Her name whispered around the circle. It had grown out of there.

**Origin**

In the river it was always fluid. There were just too many girls; it was impossible not to fall in love. There were pretty jiejies, pretty meimeis, just—pretty girls trickling through every branch of the river. She had fallen in love three times, harboured crushes many more, broadcasted her love on live streams, and it had been completely normal. Such was life in the river. There were many others like her; to not fall in love with a girl was to be an outlier.

Su Shanshan had always been an outlier. For her the river was stagnant, in the same way that it flowed for the other girls. It was a joke that you were turned once in the river, and it had mostly been true—but girls like Su Shanshan proved that it could never be a fact.

She never understood it. There were girls who could do anything—pretty ones, flirty ones, strong ones manlier than any man. Ones who could be your boyfriend, who had fans calling them laogong in every theatre fancall. But Su Shanshan had always been steadfast about it: she was not attracted to girls at all. No CP or drama or sweeping declarations of love could change that. It was just the way she was wired—primordial. Su Shanshan had always been weird like that.

**Inward**

For girls like her there were Ts and Ps and things like that. Huas, guas, 1s, 0s, self-proclaimed As and Os. Maybe in the middle you could be a feminine T, or a 0.5, but you were still _something—_ and you were meant to follow that role. She had always been a P, a blooming flower, and as the fans liked to joke— _Fei Qinyuan only likes Ts!_ But as she grew older, the flower unfurled and withered; what was left was only the stem from which the flower had sprung. It was this stem which had rooted her to Su Shanshan—the floweriest of all the flowers. Maybe that was why her petals had fallen: to make way for her.

**Outward**

She had not known life outside rivers. Changlong, too, was a river, grander and deeper than the one at Jiaxing Road—less girls but more types, and even more of an implicit understanding between them; you built your own boats to survive. She had two: one from new wood, hammered together by new friends who shared the same primordial itch, the other older but sturdier, brought over from her origin river. Sun Rui, Duan Yixuan, Su Shanshan, who were all simultaneously there and never there, flitting around new boats and old. It was still a river, though, and the fork closed inwards at night, where there would be a whispered confession thrown into the void, like: “I want to quit the show.” Or, more scandalous ones like “I would date Zeng Keni,” which was true for everyone but Su Shanshan, whose own bedtime thoughts went something like this:

“I think Liu-laoshi is a T.”

“Yes…?” 

It didn’t need to be said, but Su Shanshan never picked up on things that other people picked up on. Yet she was never embarrassed by it; she treated it as a strength instead of a weakness. Maybe she was right to do that. It was what had made her popular, after all.

“Oh. I didn’t know…”

“You didn’t? _Really?_ ” asked Sun Rui, who didn’t bother to keep the incredulity out of her voice. In a show of magnanimity that she rarely granted anyone, she didn’t push. Instead, she sighed and muttered: “Ah, Su Shanshan, what are we going to do with you?”

“I don’t know,” said Su Shanshan. “I’m just me. There’s nothing to do with me, is there?”

Before Sun Rui could laugh, she could not help but interrupt, teasingly: “Why, Su Shanshan? Do you think Liu-laoshi could be your boyfriend?”

“I don’t know.” But then, softer, “Maybe…”

That was the wildest thing she had heard from Su Shanshan. “But… you’re…”

“You asked if she could be my boyfriend, not if she could be my girlfriend.”

“They’re—” It was a weird thing to explain. Or so it was weird when she tried to rationalize it in her head: Liu Yuxin was a girl who was a T and therefore had that energy that made her metaphorically capable of being a boyfriend. But she couldn’t _actually_ be a boyfriend. She would still be a girlfriend. A boyfriend-energy girlfriend, but still a girlfriend. “They’re the same thing with this, you know.”

“No,” said Su Shanshan firmly. “They’re not.”

“They’re…”

“They’re not the same. I would know.”

There was so much to say to that. Namely, the bitter question: what do _you_ know? It was pitiful to have Su Shanshan explain things like that to her—things that she already knew, and had known, for so long that she couldn’t even remember. But it was hard to resent it when it came from Su Shanshan—airy, weird Su Shanshan, who just said anything she wanted to say. Once she had remarked that GNZ was too gay; then, upon revisiting Guangzhou, she had said it again. As if everyone didn’t already know. 

So it was hard to resent, but the question still rattled through the silent Changlong dorm: how do you know? What do you know? What do you know of us, Su Shanshan?

**Round River**

Then when Su Shanshan whispered “Yuanyuan?” it came around like her name—circled. In her bunk bed she could not move, frozen by the desire to reach out and touch Su Shanshan’s softly illuminated face, rounded by her name and the moon. It scared her so much she had to close her eyes, but Su Shanshan pried them open with her fingers and asked, curiously: “Why’re you closing your eyes?”

“It’s late, Su Shanshan.”

Su Shanshan peered at her. “And why do you never call me jie?”

It never seemed to have bothered Su Shanshan before; honorifics were mostly emphasized on feeling. Rui-ge and Da-ge _felt_ like ges, but Su Shanshan never felt like anything besides Su Shanshan. “Do you… do you want me to?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, okay. I'll do it in the future.” But Su Shanshan’s gaze bore steadily into her own, and she hastened to add: “Or—now? Okay, okay, uh…” The word caught in her mouth. It didn’t seem right for Su Shanshan. “Uh... jie…”

“You’re so reluctant,” remarked Su Shanshan, laughing. “Yuanyuan, not round, iron-hard like a straight man!”

Somehow it felt like a compliment. Especially when coming from Su Shanshan. “Then—could I be your boyfriend…?”

Silence. She waited for Su Shanshan’s expression to stutter shut, but it remained moon-like, half-light half-shadow shored into one soft circle. “You forgot already, didn’t you?” Su Shanshan murmured.

“Forgot—what?”

“What did you say you’d call me?”

“Ah… jie…” There was nothing else she could say besides that refrain, but before she could circle around it Su Shanshan was doing it for her: “Yuanyuan, Yuanyuan, Yuanyuan…” Her eyes were impossibly round. Like her name. Like the moon. Like the river, ebbing into a circle. 

**Branch**

The problem was that she could not be a boyfriend. Not even in the most metaphorical sense, where girls who were not masculine Ts could be; it was just not an energy that she possessed. But for Su Shanshan she yearned to be one, and in her desperation she asked Liu Yuxin one day after practice: “Liu-laoshi, how do you… how do you do what you do?”

“Do what?” replied Liu Yuxin, who was reapplying her makeup with the help of the large practice room mirrors. 

“How do you… become more T?”

The powdering stopped. Through the mirror, Liu Yuxin pinned her with a single exasperated look. It was an answer that didn’t need to be verbalized.

“I know—I know, I’m sorry. And also sorry for bothering you about this—”

A hand landed on her shoulder. She looked up, and Liu Yuxin was smiling awkwardly at her; she supposed it was an attempt to be comforting. “Ei—” Liu Yuxin cleared her throat. “I’m bad at this, sorry,” she apologized. “But just… just be yourself, okay?”

She could not help looking at Liu Yuxin’s lithe androgynous figure and short-cut hair, impeccably styled in the latest men’s fashion. It was not her, and as she met Liu Yuxin’s eyes she knew they both knew it. “Okay,” she said, but it was easier said than done. She still did not know who she was, or who she could become. 

**Storm**

When she next faced Su Shanshan alone they had both been eliminated from the show. They were the first of the river girls to go, and at the airport they were greeted by the frantic calls of fans, cameras flashing too harsh and bright in their faces. At the boarding gate they had been surrounded, and someone—one of her mom fans—had passed her a headband. It was a cute little one with two ears and ribbons and pearls dangling off it. She moved to put it in the bag, but someone in the crowd shouted: “Wear it!” When she shook her head, they only got louder. “Strong men must wear it!”

Next to her, Su Shanshan laughed. “Indeed, strong men must wear it!”

That set off a chorus of strong man, strong man, strong man, the strongest man Fei Qinyuan! She felt, then, a sense of boldness that she had not felt before—to be acknowledged, as the strong stem from which she had originated. One second, everybody was begging. She put it on for less than that.

In the plane Su Shanshan said: “You should’ve just done as they asked.”

“I did—I put it on!”

“They couldn’t even get a photo of it—you took it off too quickly.”

The boldness she had felt earlier was starting to metamorphose into something uglier—why did Su Shanshan feel like she could lecture her on how to be an idol? They were both still supposed to be learning. That was what the system was for. “I can do what I want. The fans don’t own me.”

“But they do. They own you. They own us. It’s why we’re idols. After all, we’re never our own person.”

“What—what do you mean?”

She turned to look at Su Shanshan. There was a passive smile on her face, but something in her eyes that she had never seen before: unfiltered, unadulterated, white-hot rage. “I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me? Strong man Fei Qinyuan, why don’t you tell me?”

**Dream, Doubled**

Summer was approaching. It had yet to rest upon them, but the sky was festering, waiting; there was no sun but intemperate humidity, clinging to their clothes and bodies. In this half-summer they had gone to Sichuan: Chengdu first, then Chongqing, and in Chongqing they had poured through the streets with unending laughter—oh how good it was to feel alive! To pass through stalls and haggle with vendors like tourists, to smell the delicious scent of spice and oil intermingling… to hold Su Shanshan’s hand as they traipsed through the city, taking in everything and anything that was on offer.

Su Shanshan took her to a bingfen vendor the day after their first performance. In between trying to scrape the last of the brown sugar syrup from the bottom of the bowl, Su Shanshan said: “Did you notice that the bingfen was cloudy?”

“No,” she replied; she had been too focused on eating to notice the colour.

“Well it was. It was tinged with yellow, did you not notice? And there was this—blooming thing in it, if you saw, those little bubbles trapped within the jelly itself…”

“I didn’t notice.”

“But don’t you feel like those little bubbles sometimes? Enclosed in that cold wobbly thing we call jelly. And the only way out, is, is…”

“...to melt?”

“No—be eaten. If I melt, I am nothing; if I am eaten, I am at least wanted by someone. So wanted, in fact, that they put me inside them.”

“What on earth—who would eat you?”

“I don’t know,” said Su Shanshan, eyes twinkling. “Would you?”

It was like all the air had been punched out of her. “Jie,” she said, voice hoarse. “Please—don’t.”

“I just think that I would be yummy bingfen,” said Su Shanshan.

Later that night in their hotel room Su Shanshan crawled into her bed again and said, very seriously: “You do want to be my boyfriend, don’t you.”

“I…” The desire for it was heavy and rotten in her chest. It was pointless to long for things that could not happen, yet the longing had long transmuted into a need that gnawed at her heart. Even now she could not look at Su Shanshan properly for fear that the need would consume her, and that she would unknowingly reach out to touch Su Shanshan’s still, perfect face. 

Su Shanshan had started to cry. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Yuanyuan, I’m sorry…”

“No, jie.” There was moisture dripping down her own cheeks; had she started to cry too? Yes, she had—her eyes were wet. Su Shanshan reached out to wipe her tears away, and, hands shaking, she reached back to touch Su Shanshan’s own face; the touch of it burned through her fingers. “No, it’s me. It's me who should be sorry…” She looked up, and Su Shanshan’s eyes were trembling with tears. They really were impossibly round. Like a stream, welling into the river circle. There was a lot of rainwater; it was half-summer, after all. 

**Summer**

‘Goodbye spring youth! Hello youthful summer!’ was what all her fans were telling her. They had been stretched thin from spring fundraising, and the summer was proving to be even more of a struggle. They were complaining as well, using every platform they could think of—her supertopic, douban forums, even private pocket messages—to scold her for not listening to them; how to fundraise for her if she refused to listen?

She told herself that she did not care. And she hadn’t, not throughout the preliminary results, not until she had stood on the elections stage, bangsless, stripped bare by the harsh glare of the stage lights. Her result had been broadcasted all across the nation— _Fei Qinyuan, 14!_ Only one place higher than last year, when she had both a youthful spring and summer. It was then, as she could not help but cry in front of the camera, that she remembered what Su Shanshan had told her months ago. _They own you._

She was right. They did own her.

**Trickle**

After that she started listening. The circle was redrawn, and her mothers and fathers with their always-present keyboards praised her. She was cute again, the hua that everyone wanted her to be. It was easier that way, and she had begun to realize that was the best way to be. Maybe she would never reach Kami7, maybe she would—whatever. As long as it was easy. That’s all she wanted it to be.

**Storm, Part Two**

Then Su Shanshan stopped listening. 

It was hard to trace the reason for it. From the gossip that circulated around their dorm, it was her role in AW9 and her transfer from Beijing to Shanghai—but nobody knew the main reason. It was just like her favourite catchphrase—giao!—nobody knew the meaning behind it. On stage she had faded into the background during MCs, in the dorm she had withdrawn into her room and refused to talk to anyone.

“Talk to her,” instructed Sun Rui one day, after they were sick of being worried sick about her. “You’re fairly close to her. Go—ask her what’s going on.”

“Why don’t _you_ do it, Rui-ge?”

“Me?” Sun Rui scoffed. “You want me, dongbei loudmouth me, to go comfort people? She’ll end up crying. Go—go. Isn’t that your concept these days? A more motherly sort of hua? Or are you still going through your gua phase?”

It was obviously not meant to be malicious, but it still hurt—especially when it came from someone like Sun Rui, who she admired dearly. She tried to explain: “Ge, I’m not either? Or, well, I don’t know. I’ve never known, I think, but people keep telling me that—that I’m this, or that, or I need to be something—”

“Fuck them,” said Sun Rui fiercely. “Seriously, fuck them. You don’t need to be anything you don’t want to be, okay? I thought you just liked changing your concept!”

“I do—but don’t I have to land on one?”

Sun Rui laughed. “Yuanyuan, you can be anything you want to be. If it’s confusing, then it’s confusing. Look at me. Am I not just my loud self all the time?”

But it was too easy for Sun Rui to say—she had such a strong sense of self. She knew who she was, and yet she still had a role _—ge—_ one that she fulfilled comfortably. And in terms of Ts and Ps and huas and guas—maybe it mattered less for her because Sun Rui was as celibate as a monk. Still, it was a weird thing to balance, and in her curiosity she couldn’t help but ask: “But don’t you care? About roles?”

“No.” Sun Rui’s voice was firm. “Fans—and the girls—can call me anything they like. It doesn’t matter to me, I am my own person. I have preferences, sure, but I’m still my own person. And Yuanyuan—you are still so young! You don’t have to know now. I promise you have the rest of your life to figure it out, so don’t think about these kinds of pointless things, okay?”

Not yet—it was not okay yet. But Sun Rui was right. She had time; she had the rest of her life. So, for the first time, Fei Qinyuan murmured “Okay” and almost believed it.

**Circle**

It felt like the beginning again, knocking at Su Shanshan’s door. Like the foundling of that primordial itch. Su Shanshan opened the door with a blank face, and upon seeing her, it turned even more blank—but the door remained open. 

Fei Qinyuan took a step in. 

Closing the door behind her, she said: “Jie, I’m worried about you.”

Su Shanshan laughed. “Worry… worry! Worrying about me! What is there to worry about?”

Su Shanshan’s face was carefully blank, and Fei Qinyuan wanted to hug her, or slap her, or maybe even kiss her—just to see something other than that clinical-white blankness on her face. But she held herself back, and said, instead: “Do you remember what you told me on the plane back to Shanghai?” There was no response; Fei Qinyuan gritted her teeth and powered on: “You said that the fans own us. Do you still believe that?” Again, no response. “Jiejie, please—”

“Yes,” whispered Su Shanshan. Her eyes were turning red, glassy. 

“Oh…” 

She was crying now. “I’m just—tired of it. So tired…” 

“I know you are. And I’m sorry.”

“You understand, don’t you?” asked Su Shanshan, sniffling. “I know you do. All the hua and gua stuff. All the CP stuff. All the things that the fans want us to do or to be; I know you understand all of it. Aren’t you tired of it?”

She was. But it was also part of her identity as Fei Qinyuan—to be a categorized something—in a way that Su Shanshan could never understand. And that was fine; Fei Qinyuan had yet to understand it either. “Of course. But you know, it doesn’t have to matter. Don’t think so much about it.”

“I see it everyday,” said Su Shanshan, still crying. “All the comments, the calls, in the forums, in the pocket message rooms. How do I not think about it?”

“I don’t know,” Fei Qinyuan admitted. “But I’m trying. Rui-ge told me to try. To not be so wrapped up in my own mind. I’m still learning how to do it, though.”

“Oh, Yuanyuan.” Su Shanshan was smiling bitterly. “Do you think your fans will give you the space to do that? Do you think our company will? Do you think they’ll give you the space to experiment and find yourself before all your fans leave you and you’ll be worth nothing in the group?”

“Is that what you’re worried about?”

 _“Yes!_ I am something now; if they leave I am nothing. And I hate it, you know?” she said, furiously wiping away her tears. “I have to do everything I hate to stay relevant.”

“Don’t say that. You don’t have to. You can change, slowly, and find something new—”

“And how has that been working out for you?”

“Please don’t,” pleaded Fei Qinyuan. Su Shanshan had never been a cruel person, but Fei Qinyuan was starting to realize that she had never been a kind one either. “I’m really sorry you’re feeling like this, but please—don’t.”

“You don’t deserve it, I know,” said Su Shanshan. “But I don’t either. I don’t…”

She started to cry again. All Fei Qinyuan could do was stand there, frozen. Agonized, she debated whether or not to approach—reach out, perhaps, rest a hand on her shoulder, offer any kind of comfort she could give. But then Su Shanshan looked at her with the same placid smile that she had been displaying during theatre stages, and to have that smile directed at her was a terrible realization that shook Fei Qinyuan to her core. “You still want to be my boyfriend, don’t you?”

“Jie,” said Fei Qinyuan, half-drunk with terror, “don’t ask me questions you already know the answer to.” 

“Then ask me again. You don’t know my answer, do you?”

“Jie…”

“Ask.”

“I don't—I don't want to. Please. I don't.”

“Baobei, you have to.”

She too was crying now, begging, “Please, _please_ —don’t do this.”

 _“Ask me,_ Fei Qinyuan.”

Sobbing, she did as she was told. “Can I… can I be your boyfriend?”

“Oh, Yuanyuan,” said Su Shanshan tenderly. She reached out to cup Fei Qinyuan’s face in her hands. It was like that night in Changlong, and in Chongqing—except it was an answer, this time. Su Shanshan’s eyes were still impossibly round. They had rounded the river circle, and reached the final primordial point, tied to the origin of their selves. “You can’t.”

**Author's Note:**

> -The Chinese title of this fic is 源河圆. 'Round River Circle' is not exactly that; I just liked how 'Round River' sounded over what might literally be 'FQY's River is Round', haha. Besides being a homonym, Fei Qinyuan's yuan (源) also means 'source/origin/root' (of a river!).  
> - _Boyfriend energy/the whole 'boyfriend' idea:_ 男友力, but in general I was thinking about the fan tendency of describing female idols who are slightly more 'masculine' or caring in a 'boyfriend' way as being like a husband (laogong) or boyfriend. Like a lot of girls call LYX their husband/boyfriend, but more 'feminine' idols like SNH48's Sun Rui/Dai Meng & YTSN's Zhao Yue also get called that a lot. It's not a bad thing; some of them really like being called it, lol, and there are a lot of straight girls in their fandoms. In this fic I think FQY and 433 have very different opinions about what the word 'boyfriend' means to them.  
> -Su Shanshan/433 actually said that about GNZ.  
> - _Bingfen:_ 冰粉 A dessert popular during the summer and especially popular in Sichuan. It's a type of jelly that is usually eaten with brown sugar syrup and some fruits on top. Traditionally, it's actually meant to be slightly yellow and cloudy, the irony is that if you’ve been eating the clear packet ones you’d have no idea! [This youtube channel has a really nice tutorial in English on how to make it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHVnKGfqnGQ&ab_channel=ChineseCookingDemystified)  
> - _...her mothers and fathers:_ There are different types of fans, e.g mom/dad fans, girlfriend/boyfriend fans, you label yourself. FQY has a lot of mom/dad fans.  
> -FQY and 433 actually have a CP called 心费复苏 (a play on 心肺复苏, which means CPR), you can see their weibo supertopic [here!](https://weibo.com/p/1008088e637f4d1fc24b5f8965fa0c8a2a21e5/super_index)  
> -[Here is a link to a list I have made on some of the fandom/lesbian terms.](https://notepad.pw/48225r0q)  
> 


End file.
